Recent Stories: Real estate

As other East End towns had increases in the first eight months of the year, East Hampton's 2-percent transfer tax fell by double digits.

East Hampton Town lagged behind the rest of the East End in income from the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund through the first eight months of the year.

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said in a release yesterday that revenue from a 2-percent tax on most real estate sales had declined 13.7 percent in East Hampton from the same period last year. Regionally, community preservation fund income for 2017 was up nearly 4 percent.

Southold Town led the pack, with a spike of 27.4 percent. Shelter Island followed with a 12-percent increase. Southampton's figure jumped by 11.3 percent, and Riverhead's by 3.4 percent.

In East Hampton preservation fund revenues were down by just over 20 percent in the first six months of 2017.

Income into the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund — the land preservation and water quality fund established by the five East End towns — in June reached its highest monthly total since December 2014.

A total of $11.2 million was collected for the regional fund that month. This year’s six-month total for January through June is also up. At $49.2 million, it is 6.8 percent higher than the total for the first half of 2016.

According to Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who issued a press release with the recent figures, “Revenues have shown increasing strength in the last four months. These revenue increases demonstrate a strengthening real estate market on the East End.”

For the time being, “there’s a shortage of buyers and a lot of overpricing. Prices must come down," Peter Turino, the president of Brown Harris Stevens in the Hamptons, told a crowd at East Hampton Library.

Judging by the East Hampton Library’s standing-room-only turnout last Thursday to hear three veteran brokers talk about Hamptons real estate, either a lot of people are preparing to attend a lot of dinner parties, knowing the topic will be second only to politics, or they are thinking of putting their houses on the market.

Tick Hall, Dick Cavett’s house in the historical Montauk Association, went on the market last week for the first time ever, for a cool $62 million.

Tick Hall, Dick Cavett’s house in the historical Montauk Association, went on the market last week for the first time ever, and for a cool $62 million, a new owner can experience the special something that has beguiled Mr. Cavett for over half a century.

“It has, until now, passed from hand to hand,” Mr. Cavett wrote in an email. “It’s never been on the market in its 135-year history.” In the past, the property traded hands privately, most recently to Mr. Cavett in 1966.

Bravo’s reality series “Summer House” will be moving from Napeague to Water Mill after it was denied a filming permit in East Hampton Town.

Bravo’s reality series “Summer House” will be moving from Napeague to Water Mill after it was denied a filming permit in East Hampton Town.

Southampton Town has approved an application for the series to shoot for 40 days this the summer, beginning the weekend of June 23, with a small crew setting up two days before. The filming will continue for 10 weekends, through Labor Day. Filed by Truly Original L.L.C., the application indicates that there will be 35 people, including cast and crew, at each filming session.

A building on one of the busiest and most prominent corners in Bridgehampton, once planned to house a CVS pharmacy, is now complete and ready for occupancy.

A building on one of the busiest and most prominent corners in Bridgehampton, once planned to house a CVS pharmacy, is now complete and ready for occupancy. What retailer, or retailers, will end up on the first floor remains unknown, with space still available for lease.

Greystone has a site plan application before the Sag Harbor Planning Board and a wetlands application before the harbor committee for the condominium project.

Greystone Development, a Manhattan real estate company that owns waterfront parcels that the Village of Sag Harbor would like to see become a park, reported on Monday that it had closed on Friday on an additional waterfront lot, 2 West Water Street, for $4.94 million.

The Panoramic View Resort in Montauk has been sold by the federal government to the management firm that owns Gurney’s Resort and Spa next door.

The partners who in 2013 purchased Gurney’s Inn, since renamed Gurney’s Resort and Seawater Spa, have now bought the 12 townhouses, 3 oceanfront cottages, and 50 unsold motel rooms at the Panoramic View Resort, which lies just to the west.

Eothen, the oceanfront property on the eastern end of Montauk known as the Warhol Estate, is in contract to be sold to Adam Lindemann for close to $60 million. The purchase does not include the pasture known as Indian Field, which remains listed at $25 million, according to Paul Brennan of Douglas Elliman.

Eothen, the oceanfront property on the eastern end of Montauk known as the Warhol Estate, is in contract to be sold to Adam Lindemann for close to $60 million. The purchase does not include the pasture known as Indian Field, which remains listed at $25 million, according to Paul Brennan of Douglas Elliman.

With literally a few hundred open houses taking place on the East End, real estate agents will stay busy this weekend as they make one final push before the selling season comes to an end.

Columbus Day weekend draws visitors to the South Fork for many reasons, the Montauk Fall Festival or the Hamptons International Film Festival perhaps, but it's also a home buyer's paradise. With literally a few hundred open houses taking place on the East End, real estate agents will stay busy this weekend as they make one final push before the selling season comes to an end.

We may pretend we don’t care, but, c’mon, don’t you want to know which Southampton house the Kardashian sisters rented this summer?

Khloe, Kourtney, and presumably Kim, fresh from her betrothal to Kanye West, rented a storefront off Job’s Lane in Southampton and will be filming their reality TV series “Kourtney and Khloe Take the Hamptons,” this summer, based on their adventures. Now, since they will need somewhere to sleep after all their cavorting around town, they have leased digs in North Sea.

Barn and Vine, a 50-acre development under construction in Bridgehampton abutting the Channing Daughters vineyard, was featured on Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing New York” last night.

The listing of 37 houses, each on half-acre-plus lots, is shared by four agents: Terry Thompson and Aaron Curti locally, and Fredrik Eklund and John Gomes in New York, all of Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Mr. Eklund is one of the principals featured on the TV show.

The other day a real estate team from Douglas Elliman held an unusual open house. The only invitees were members of the East Hampton Town Board, Nature Conservancy, Peconic Land Trust, local environmentalists, and philanthropists. The property is in an idyllic ecotone between salt marsh and forest off Northwest Creek in East Hampton. And Chris Chapin, his partner Ray Lord III, and the owner want it saved.

Bargain hunters take note. Fort Pond Boulevard in Springs might not be noted it for mega-mansions, but it still caused notice when a .32-acre property there was recorded in the transfers this week at having sold for a mere $210,000.

“This is the least expensive sale that I have seen in years,” said Chris Chapin, an agent at Douglas Elliman, who could not find the listing in any of the systems used by his company. “This likely was a private sale that never hit the open market.”

Steven Spielberg, who lives on nine acres overlooking Georgica and Lily Ponds and straddling Apaquogue and West End Roads in East Hampton Village, has placed on the market a nearby 3.3-acre property he purchased six years ago for $20 million in hopes of expanding his domain. He tore down the house on the newly listed property at 94 Apaquogue Road, which he bought from a member of the Cartier jewelry family, but never built there.

The rumors that have abounded suggesting that two of the Kardashian sisters will be opening a South Fork shop have been corroborated. Irma Herzog, the owner of the Driver’s Seat in Southampton, and retail spaces directly to the west of the restaurant, has confirmed that she has leased the storefront at 64 Jobs Lane to the Tinsel Town siblings.

An 8,000-square-foot Sagaponack house designed by Charles Gwathmey, a modernist architect who left a legacy of chic boxes throughout the South Fork, was sold in February for $20 million, as recorded in recent deed transfers. The house wasn’t officially on the market, as the owners were waiting to finish a house they are building nearby, according to the selling agent, Corcoran’s Susan Breitenbach.

When Linda Haugevik, an agent at Sotheby’s International Realty, put North Haven’s six-acre Strongheart estate on the market in July for $65 million, there were those who accused her of being on “hallucinogens,” she said.

In other words, even though the property belonged to the actor Richard Gere and his wife, Carey Lowell (who have since filed for divorce, according to the tabloids), it was perceived by some as overpriced. Nine months later, the price has been reduced to $56 million.

When it comes to commercial real estate on the South Fork, rumors abound. Come winter, with many shops closed, tongues wag about which are coming and which are going. Don’t necessarily listen to the scuttlebutt.

When it comes to commercial real estate on the South Fork, rumors abound. Come winter, with many shops closed, tongues wag about which are coming and which are going. Don’t necessarily listen to the scuttlebutt.